Morristown doctor's book details plane crash, life as a medical student

Morris County Sheriff gives badges to dogs in the K-9 unit
Peggy Wright

Dr. Carl Giordano, front, holding his book "Shoot the Moon" at a book release event at the Morris County Golf Club.
Pictured with him are friends and family including Darcy and Peter Caldwell, Jenn and Darren Burns, Virginia and Mike Ranger and his wife, Abbie Giordano.(Photo: Photo courtesy of Jenkins Group, Inc.)

Surviving a small plane crash against insurmountable odds brought into focus just how precious life is for Dr. Carl Giordano.

On Aug. 16, 2015, Giordano was flying home to Morristown from Bethpage, Long Island, when the small plane he was co-piloting developed engine trouble at 6,500 feet. When the plane descended to 30 feet above the ground, Giordano began to plan his escape.

“Like in the operating room, you’re confronted with a lot of difficulties and you’ve got to complete them," Giordano said. "I had my left hand on my seatbelt and my right hand just staring at the latch on the door because I knew if it’s a bumpy landing, sometimes the doors can buckle and you can’t open the door. I’m just waiting for the moment to release them both and get out of the plane. That’s the only thing I was thinking about.”

When the plane’s wing on Giordano’s side clipped a railroad crossing boom, it tore off. Going 60 miles per hour, the door opened, either by Giordano's hand or by the action. Either way the doctor dove out of the plane. A tenth-of-a-second later, the plane struck the ground, instantly killing the pilot.

Giordano suffered a broken jaw, collarbone, finger and ribs along with a concussion and a bad gash in his leg. He was back in his office working within three months and a month after that began performing surgeries again.

“I remember it all except for probably one-tenth of a second. Throughout our training, you become very robotic and that’s the way I felt in the plane. I was just waiting and luckily that’s what I was concentrating on. Whether that’s what got me out or whether I just got ejected from the plane, I couldn’t tell you. But I think I broke my left finger on the seat belt and I think I broke my jaw on the door as I exited out of the plane. And I’ll take that.”

The crash and other behind the scenes details of life as a medical student then a doctor are detailed in “Shoot the Moon: The True Story of a Look Behind the Curtain of Medical School and Residency...and Surviving the Worst in Life,” penned by Giordano and M. Rutledge McCall and published Nov. 14, 2017.

The book is the true story of the making of a surgeon. It gives the reader a better understanding of what it’s like to go through years of medical school training, followed by years of residency, followed by more years of fellowship specialty training.

Following in the footsteps of his general surgeon father, Giordano graduated Rutgers Medical School in 1986. He completed an orthopedic residency and fellowship in Spinal Surgery in 1994 at the Hospital for Joint Diseases – Orthopedic Institute in New York City. A graduate of Morristown High School, he spent the past 20 years as a spinal surgeon and currently works at Morristown Medical Center.

“I think it will be a fun read," Giordano said of his book. "I wanted honestly to tell the story of residency. I wanted people that aren’t in medicine to learn a little bit about what orthopedic surgery and specifically spine surgery is like." Giordano lives in Morristown with his wife Abbie.

“My beef with things like ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is, it’s not really realistic. They kind of make the residents and the doctors look a little goofy and residency training is anything but goofy.”

“My motive is to promote the profession. I love what I do. I don’t find a lot of people who really love what they do,” Giordano said. “I want to motivate the kids and the young people to stick with medicine. I want them to see all the good stuff about it. It’s still a great profession.”

"Shoot the Moon: The True Story of a Look Behind the Curtain of Medical School and Residency...and Surviving the Worst in Life,” by Dr. Carl Giordano and M. Rutledge McCall was published on Nov. 14, 2017.(Photo: Photo courtesy of Jenkins Group, Inc.)

The book intertwines the horrific accident with Giordano’s life as he becomes a doctor, detailing how the unique training laid a foundation that allowed him to one day deal calmly with the life-and-death disaster. In the end, he lets readers decide for themselves as to whether he was able to survive by his own abilities or by the hand of God. Or was it perhaps a little bit of both?

“I’ll let the reader decide how I got out. I’m not going to put a feather in my own hat in that regard,” Giordano said. “Everybody came up to me afterwards and said, you’re going to retire? I said, relax, I love what I do. I’m going back to work.”

“Shoot the Moon” is available at www.amazon.com.

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